The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools

by Upton Sinclair

CHAPTER XLVII
THE LOCAL MACHINES

We have now examined school conditions in nineteen of the largest American cities; the total population of these cities amounts to eighteen million, which means four million children subject to the education here portrayed. You have noticed how much alike these school machines are; it has no doubt occurred to you that such resemblance cannot be a matter of accident, there must be some centralized control, some bureau of standardization in charge of school systems in the United States. And this is true; the local school machines, in cities, towns and villages, are part of county machines, and these county machines are part of state machines, and these state machines are united and co-ordinated and standardized by the National Education Association, with the help of the United States Bureau of Education, and the Rockefeller General Education Board, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Let us begin with the counties. Under the American system a county superintendent of schools invariably has to be a school politician, and almost invariably has to be a political politician as well. His school gang is made up of his assistants and clerks and principals and other numerous appointees, all of whom depend upon his favor and are looking for promotion; also those teachers who serve him as bell-wethers, leading the flocks of teacher sheep. In order to preserve the self-respect of teachers, and make them think they have something to do with education, they are organized into associations or clubs, all of which are affiliated with the National Education Association, and practically all of which are run by the local school machine. These teachers’ associations thus occupy in the school world the same position as the company or “yellow” unions, in the labor world. In the great percentage of cases the officers in these teachers’ associations are the superintendents and principals and other members of the supervising force; in the remaining cases they are teachers who take their orders from this force. In the few cases where the teachers have dared to rebel and control their own organizations, their leaders have been browbeaten and persecuted, slandered and denied promotion.

The county superintendent works hand in glove with the local politicians and their local financial masters. Whether he is appointed, or whether he is elected, makes little difference, because the election must be preceded by a nomination, which depends upon the local political machine. Back of this nomination and the ensuing election are all the sinister forces of graft which expect to profit from the schools. There are the land speculators, who either have land to sell, or want to buy school lands upon which wealth of some sort has been discovered. There are contractors who want to put up school buildings for profit; there are school book agents, who are bosom friends of all superintendents, and put up money to elect them, and get it back ten-fold. I shall show you in due course how these book agents serve also as teachers’ agents, controlling the appointment of teachers and handing out favors and promotions to those who support their “line.”

And of course there are the bankers, who want the handling of school funds, and also of the teachers’ funds; you shall see how the teachers put up money for their own pensions, and the gang takes charge of it, and turns it over to the bankers, either for cash or for political support, which comes to the same thing. Also there are business interests which want child labor, and want the compulsory school attendance laws repealed or ignored. There are the various organizations of Big Business propaganda—the National Association of Manufacturers, which wants the children trained for servitude in mills and stores; the American Legion and the militarists, who want them taught war and the patriotism of greed; the newspapers, which support all forms of reaction, and hold over the head of every official the imminent threat of ruin as the penalty for insubordination. Such is the position of county superintendents of schools, and of county boards of education everywhere throughout the United States—except in those few counties where the people, through the Farmer-Labor movement or something of the sort, have been able to take over control of their own affairs.

Next, the state superintendents and the state boards, which are the same thing upon a bigger scale. The state machine has more money, the state superintendent gets a higher salary, and so he is a politician of more skill and subtlety. He stands in with the state gang, and his office is a “hang-out” for idle functionaries smoking numerous big cigars. He works with the land grafters and the book companies, the bankers and merchants and manufacturers; he is their man, and gives the people their kind of education. As a rule, the people are satisfied with that—there being no other kind of education in sight, and no other kind conceivable. The devout peasants of America have been taught to sing a hymn about “the old-time religion,” which was good for their fathers and is good enough for them; in exactly the same way their children get the old-time education from the old-time gang. The average American has been taught to believe in the public schools as next to the church in sacredness, and he takes it for granted that public educators must be noble-minded and disinterested men.

There are frequently disputes between the educational politicians and the political politicians; but if you examine these, you will generally find that they are disputes over the division of the public funds. The educational politicians are naturally fighting for the educational machine; they want it to grow big, they want to be able to promote their subordinates, and to carry on their propaganda, and to build up their prestige. Here in my state of California, as I write, the state superintendent is in the midst of a dispute with the newly elected governor of the Black Hand. The governor cut down appropriations for the state school machine to almost nothing—it was part of his program of “economy,” and the state simply must have a new penitentiary if the “criminal syndicalism” law is to be saved. The state superintendent of schools carried the issue to the legislature, and the legislature voted him the money, and the governor vetoed the bill.

So now in the Los Angeles “Times” you learn that the state superintendent is guilty of “political activities”; he is using the power of his office to appeal to the people against the governor. In such a dispute the sympathies of the local educational machines throughout the state will be with the superintendent; they too want funds, and they have to fight the forces which cut off their funds. But they will all be careful not to overstep a certain limit in their activities; the ultimate arbiter is Big Business, and both parties appeal thereto.

I have emphasized the uniformity of school systems and of their political control. This uniformity is attained by constant communication among the superintendents and the supervising force. In California they make the state pay the expenses of this inter-communication; twice every year there are conventions attended by all county and city superintendents; once a year there is a convention for all principals of high schools; and the traveling expenses of these functionaries are paid out of the school funds. We shall find when we come to study the national body that it has a “Department of Superintendence,” and holds a convention in the course of each winter, at which all the superintendents gather, expenses paid. Here is the great clearing-house, where the bosses exchange experiences and perfect the technique of holding down the salaries of the teachers, breaking up their organizations, eliminating the rebels from the system, and making fast the hold of the gang.

We are going to attend several of these conventions of the National Education Association, and meet some thirty thousand educators, assembled from every corner of the country. But first it is desirable that we should know more about the county and state organizations, all of which send delegates to the national conventions. Let us take up the state machines—bearing in mind that they are all alike, and that when you know one you know forty-eight.